Hmm. How to put this. They get better as they go on as David Gaider gets more prose experience, but they also get less game-relevant. The Stolen Throne explains a lot of backstory to Origins, but is the clunkiest of his three; The Calling is a prequel to Awakening, but without much setting exploration like Stolen Throne; and Asunder is a standalone with no relevance to Dragon Age II.

(So is The Masked Empire, but that at least features a major game character and promises to be relevant to Inquisition.)

Are the novels any good? Odd that you never finished Awakening. Golems of Amgarrak is fun but I don't think there's any larger point to it that I've seen, so I skipped it for the playthrough I'm doing now (currently a female mage in DA2). Witch Hunt is a must of course. I don't know that I could ever side fully with the werewolves, but so far I've resolved the conflict peacefully both times. Siding with the Templars would be interesting especially depending on what you choose in DA2.

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I've played through Awakenings several times before, but for some reason I never finished it with my "main" (read:first) Warden. For some reason, she never got further than a first visit to Amaranthine.
As for Golems of Amgarrak, it was just a case of after 4 years, I was *determined* to get that "Grim Reaper" trophy. Had to respec as an archer to do it, but I did it!
Also it was just for the sake of completion since what I've doing is making a save file for import and I figure the more plot flags the more content I'm liable to get out of DAI...even if it's marginal.

As for the novels...yeah, I'd say they're pretty good. It helps that David Gaider--one of the main writers of the DA games--wrote the first three while Patrick Weekes (formerly of the Mass Effect team) did the latest one.
It was especially great in Asunder since I'm pretty sure Gaider had originally written the in-game dialogue for the Origins characters that were making a return, so you could practically hear their voices as you read.

While they're not essential reading, they do all have some substance to add to lore of the games. 'The Stolen Throne' is basically the story of Ferelden's fight to kick Orlais out at the dawn of the Dragon Age, featuring Maric's mother "the Rebel Queen" and how Maric himself met and became friends with Logain. 'The Calling' is tied to Duncan's early days as a Warden and Maric's later years.

'Asunder' and 'The Masked Empire' take place in Orlais almost exactly in parallel (3 years after the Kirkwall rebellion, right before Cassandra is off interrogating Varric.) The former is about the fracturing of Circles of Magi, the Chantry, the Templars and the Seekers as the direct result of what Anders set in motion.
The latter concerns court intrigue and rebellion in Orlais. Both novels have a certain red haired agent of the Divine makign came appearances.

I can only speak for myself, but I tore through Masked Empire. Very enjoyable. Can't wait for certain characters to re-appear in DAI. Also, the ending. I won't spoil, but it has me very curious to see how that carries over into DAI.

I'm honestly baffled as to how they can set a game AFTER the events of ME3, given that the finale leaves the world in four extremely different end-states.

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I think it's safe to say that the "refuse" ending won't be importable, while the others are fairly easily glossed over. It'd hardly be the first time your decision didn't amount to anything in that series.

I'm honestly baffled as to how they can set a game AFTER the events of ME3, given that the finale leaves the world in four extremely different end-states.

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*shrug* It's the same company who created a DLC as a lead-in to Mass Effect 3 (Arrival), then proceeded to pretty much ignore it entirely in the third game. ("What, we said destroying mass relays would destroy the star system? Uh... not anymore.") Between-game continuity is obviously not their strong suit.

In their defence they claim that the intent in the ME3 ending wasn't that the relays were destroyed, just damaged. Clearly splitting hairs and whether you actually believe them or not is your choice.

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Yeah, I don't really believe them. Before the Extended Cut DLC, the Charon relay was clearly destroyed and not just "ruptured" or damaged like BioWare insists.

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While I'm not defending them, I am willing to buy that a lot of this was mostly down to shortcuts taken in crunch time. It's clear that from a purely technical POV, the ending and a few other areas of the game was rushed and were delivered in a less than complete state. Hence the EC re-inserting things known to have been cut prior to launch.

Either way, if they are setting this in a new galaxy as I suspect, then glossing over the three main endings should be pretty easy.

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There's still going to be post-ME3 humans, judging by the N7 armor seeing in what they showed. Hard to gloss over the green ending in that case.

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Since it was very unclear what that green nonsense really meant anyway, it's hard to get a handle on what long term effect it would really have. Maybe the cosmetic indicators (the green patterns) faded after a time and the bio-link gobbledygook doesn't work outside of the Milky-way.

Look, I'm not saying there's a perfectly reasonably way to explain *all* possible plot holes and inconsistencies. Given how many are pre-existing within the endings themselves, that's simply impossible.

That doesn't mean they won't simply hand-wave it. Like for example killing Leliana in DAO not preventing her from returning in DA2, or making Anderson a councillor only to have Udina to end up getting the job anyway. It's just a game and they've proven they're not above cheating the details to serve the larger story (and budget) of the project.

In their defence they claim that the intent in the ME3 ending wasn't that the relays were destroyed, just damaged. Clearly splitting hairs and whether you actually believe them or not is your choice.

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Yeah, I don't really believe them. Before the Extended Cut DLC, the Charon relay was clearly destroyed and not just "ruptured" or damaged like BioWare insists.

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While I'm not defending them, I am willing to buy that a lot of this was mostly down to shortcuts taken in crunch time. It's clear that from a purely technical POV, the ending and a few other areas of the game was rushed and were delivered in a less than complete state. Hence the EC re-inserting things known to have been cut prior to launch.

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I'm sure that had a great deal to do with it, yeah. Clearly the game needed at least another six months of development time (preferably another full year), because there were problems from start to finish, not just with the ending.

Realistically speaking, another year would have sent the budget through the roof with little hope of making back the money, thus probably killing the franchise. Time is money after all and aside from another 12 months worth of wages for however many people were on the project, it's also 12 months when they're not working on a new product, hampering long term revenue too.

In all fairness I think it's mostly a case of expectations and ambitions being hampered by economic realities. The game we felt we deserved just wasn't possible sadly.

It wasn't all down to business though. There were some very odd decisions made that did nothing for the game and wasted precious resources. That reporter who's name escapes me at the moment leaps to mind. I mean the concept is sound, but instead of developing one of the TWO reporter characters they already had, the stunt cast some web "personality" who has the acting talent of a soggy styrofoam cup. What a total waste of a good idea. Hell they could have ditched that whole mission with Jacob and *nobody* would have noticed.

So yeah, so while there's no way they could have done everything they and the fans would have liked, they still could have done *better*.

I've currently got a renegade adept FemShep I've been putzing around with who romanced Jacob just for shits n' giggles, and it's great taking all the lower right responses in ME3 and being all pissed off at him for dumping you. Can't wait to smack him in the face outside the arcade.

I was going to hook up with Traynor after rescuing Jacob, but it turns out using all the renegade dialogue with her nixxes that possibility. Who knew?